title: Proximity injection of plasticizing molecules to self-assembling polymers for large-area, ultrafast nanopatterning in the sub-10-nm regime.
abstract: While the uses of block copolymers (BCPs) with a high Flory-Huggins interaction parameter (χ) are advantageous for the improvement of resolution and line edge fluctuations of self-assembled nanoscale patterns, their slow chain diffusion results in a prolonged assembly time. Although solvent vapor annealing has shown great effectiveness in promoting the self-assembly of such BCPs, a practical methodology to achieve a uniform swelling level in wafer-scale BCP thin films has not been reported. Here, we show that a solvent-swollen polymer gel pad can be used as a highly controllable vapor source for the rapid, large-area (>200 mm in diameter) formation of sub-10-nm patterns from a high-χ BCP. The proximal injection of solvent vapors to BCP films and the systematic control of the swelling levels and temperatures can significantly boost the self-assembly kinetics, realizing the formation of well-aligned sub-10-nm half-pitch patterns within 1 min of self-assembly. Moreover, we show that the gel pad can be used for the shear-induced alignment of BCP microdomains in an extremely short time of ~5 s as well as for the generation of three-dimensional crossed-wire nanostructures with controlled alignment angles.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 302-701, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jae Won
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Jeong
authors.forename: Yoon Hyung
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Hur
authors.forename: Hyeong-Jun
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jong Min
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Woon Ik
authors.initials: WI
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Mi Jeong
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Bumjoon J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Yeon Sik
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Jung